Built In Boone: Booneshine Brewing Company

There are businesses in the High Country that truly connect their product to the place. 

This week on Mind Your Business, we continue our Built in Boone series, and step inside Booneshine Brewing Company, and talk with President and Co-Founder Tim Herdklotz. As we take a walking tour through the tasting room and production facility, we'll talk with Tim about Booneshine's origin story, their capacity for growth, and the intentionality that allowed them to develop a business that helps "make Boone shine."

We'll also go over some logistics for this weekend's Boonerang Music & Art Festival and we'll play a new game called "What are they building over there?"

Mind Your Business is written and produced weekly by the Boone Area Chamber of Commerce. This podcast is made possible thanks to the sponsorship support of Appalachian Commercial Real Estate.

Catch the show each Thursday afternoon at 5PM on WATA (1450AM & 96.5FM) in Boone.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

What started as a passion for homebrewing is now one of our region's most recognizable craft beer brands. We take a tour of Boonshine, another brand with purpose that was built in Boone. From the Boone Area Chamber of Commerce, this is Mind Your Business.

SPEAKER_02 0:19

Mind Your Business. Brought to you by Appalachian Commercial Real Estate, providing professional commercial real estate services. Visit Appalachian CRE.com.

SPEAKER_03 0:30

Hello and welcome into Mind Your Business. I'm David Jackson, President and CEO of the Boone Area Chamber of Commerce. Thanks for joining us once again this week, whether that is through the airwaves of WATA here in Boone or as a subscriber of the podcast version of this program, which is made possible each week by our friends at Appalachian Commercial Real Estate. If you are not yet a subscriber, that is not an issue. All you have to do is search for Mind Your Business wherever you get your podcast. There you can gain access to full archives. We will reference that later. There's also occasional bonus content, extended episodes, and plenty more as we connect you with the business news that you can use from right here in the mountains of Western North Carolina. Happy Boonerang weekend to those who celebrate. Last weekend, over 800 runners turned out for the inaugural Mountaineer Ten Mile, a wonderful running event that started and stopped at the Rock and took on nearly every elevation climb the town of Boone had to offer in between. Last weekend was also High Country Jazz Fest, which featured three sold-out shows at the Appalachian Theater of the High Country, with some of the top names in the industry just walking and playing within the streets of Boone, Spyrogyra was one of those sold-out performances. This weekend, the fifth annual Boonerang, which will bring tens of thousands of festival goers to the downtown Boone area for a free music festival that features great music, dancing, arts, crafts, and of course your favorite beverage of choice. The weather, once again, looks to be amazing for one of the signature weekends of the year. Next weekend is the Boon 250 celebration. The weekend after that is the 4th of July. You get the picture. No shortage of activity around here, which is great news for the local business community on a variety of levels. So let's get back to Boonerang for a moment and put yourself in the position of someone returning to a special place. Whether you attended school here, grew up and moved away, maybe you just visited here with frequency, but it's been a while since you've been back. When you go to a nostalgic place, you tend to do things that remind you of the old times. You reach for the experiences that bring back familiarity, like going to Wrigley Field in Chicago. You grab an old style and a Chicago dog, and if you're doing it right, a scorecard. You get the point. For all of the folks booneranging back here this weekend, more than a few will reach for that nostalgia in the form of a favorite meal or craft beer. Stopping at Boon Bagelry, a must. Sweet treat from Stick Boy, check. For at least a few generations of Abstate students, a cinnamon roll at McAdoos might be the hook. Only because we can't get wings at Caribbean anymore. So we find the next most nostalgic connection. Some of our visitors from this weekend will reach for a cold Boonshine from a tap trailer at the festival or from the case at the store. Boonshine was started over a decade ago by two friends, both home brewers at the time, that aspired to make a product and create a brand that in itself was aspirational. Welcome to the latest installment of our Built in Boon series, or in this case, Brewed in Boon. This week's Mind Your Business features a sit-down with Tim Herdklotz, president of Boonshine Brewing Company and one of the co-founders of the business, along with Carson Coatney. We'll walk through the tasting room, the brew house, and we'll talk about creating a business that accentuates the positives and brings people together due to a shared love of place, of connection, and of great beer. And we'll also educate those of you that have not been told the origin story quite yet of East Boon and how that supportive community of businesses has been tied directly to one another's success. Brood in Boone. We'll visit Boonshine after the break. And some Boonerang news too at the end of the show. We'll also play a game. It's called, What are they building over there? You are listening to mind your business.

SPEAKER_02 4:41

Appalachian Commercial Real Estate provides professional commercial real estate services in the Boone area. They provide sales, leasing, consulting, and appraisal services to owners and users of commercial real estate. For more information, go to their website at Appalachian CRE.com.

SPEAKER_03 5:00

Welcome back to Mind Your Business. I'm David Jackson. Before we head inside the Boonshine Brew House, let us check in on a business that will help you brew up the perfect blend of space and location for your next commercial endeavor. That's James Milner and Appalachian Commercial Real Estate. They solve simple and complex commercial real estate problems in and around the Boone area and beyond. Whether you own or lease commercial real estate, regardless of the property type, have an advocate on your side, along with expertise and experience to assist you and your business. For more information, you can check him out on the web, Appalachian CRE.com. Our friend James Milner has also caught the podcast bug himself recently. Check out his new show, Boone Tea, wherever you get your podcast. Built in Boon, a series where we go inside some of the places you pass by every day and showcase creativity, cool products, and show what can be done here in terms of crafting that next great idea. Search through our archives to find past episodes, an easy task if you are a subscriber. Just saying. This week, our task is to tell the story of intentionality behind a brand that many of you know well, and know that brand to be vibrant, with swells of people on the patio on a summer Saturday, multiple labels staring back at you from the store shelves, delicious food as you tailgate before an Appalachian FC match. Boonshine has certainly become a high country famous over their decade plus of existence. And like so many of our great small business stories in this neck of the woods, the business was not started in a corporate boardroom. It was not started by a sea of consultants. This was Carson Coatney and Tim Herdklotz sitting inside another small business just having a conversation.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

In a yogurt shop. We already were friends, and we we ran into each other in a yogurt shop. And I was like, we should think about starting a brewery. So it was kind of the the latest wave of craft breweries. I think um A and B was in planning, but nobody else had had opened here. And we were like, Boon, Boon would do well with the brewery. We should start a brewery. I was kind of started there. We had both been homebrewers separately, and so we said, well, let's get together and homebrew and just kind of dream and think about what it might be. Um it took about two years of doing that. We've you know, we've learning and reading lots of books about the business, um, what you need to scale, what does that look like? And then and then honestly, the hardest thing here in Boom was figuring out, well, where do you do this? We don't have a whole lot of industrial space, we don't have a whole lot of empty space. And our friend Patrick, who owned Basils, gave us a call and said, Hey, the business next door to me is moving out. Maybe that would be a good place for you guys to get started. And that was kind of the moment was like, okay, now we've found a place. Um, now it's real. Uh let's figure out how to do this. I have to go back to the beginning of this story.

SPEAKER_03 7:52

You said a yogurt shop. Was this during the yogurt shop craze of Boone where there was one like an eyesight of everyone? Is there something positive that came out of that time of our lives?

SPEAKER_01 8:00

It was actually, yeah. Right before we got a cold cup of yogurt, yeah. Boontstein was born in in uh the the yogurt shop. What's the uh sweet frog? That's where it was. Yeah, so believe it or not.

SPEAKER_03 8:11

The last one standing, too. That's huge. Well, that that's great, great to learn. Um, you know, you mentioned the the homebrew piece of this. Is there a beer now that you serve that closely resembles one of the homebrews that either one of you did?

SPEAKER_01 8:26

Um there is. The um the probably the closest would be the Boonshine IPA, was actually the very first beer we brewed. Um so it's uh we still have a Boonshine IPA. It's a seasonal beer for it. It's coming back. The brew team, uh, managed by uh Nick, who's here with us now, he we redid that beer last year. We kind of updated the recipe for our 10th anniversary and re-released it. But that beer still, its roots go all the way back actually to the first beer that we that Carson and I actually ever made together.

SPEAKER_03 8:55

You know, you have you start this business and and thinking about the branding that goes around it. And and I've heard you tell this story a million times, but the intentional uh intentionality behind Boonshine, where did that where did that harvest? What what what seed was planted to say, hey, you know, we could we could make a beer that's also a little bit of a of a movement or at least a suggestion of a movement.

SPEAKER_01 9:18

Yeah, so we we had decided that we would want we're interested in starting a brewery. We had started homebrewing, we didn't have a name for it yet. Um we had ideas of kind of the feel, you know, we love the the reason we did this whole thing was because we love Boone. We like living here, it's a great place to raise a family, it's a great place to be, people vacation here. I mean, there's so many great things about this community. So we we wanted to do it because we like Boone, and if we could do something that could make the high country better, that's why we did it. And so we needed a name. And a friend of ours threw out the name. He's like, you should just call this Boonshine. And initially, you know, you think Boonshine initially, you first thing you think of is Moonshine, you kind of chuckle, it's kind of a fun name, and then it clicked for us. We were like, wait a minute, Boonshine, we could talk about making Boone Shine. That's exactly what we're trying to do. It would be great to market around it. We could call our beer boonshine, we could market around make boonshine just it really clicked at that moment um and became real.

SPEAKER_03 10:17

All right, so uh starting out here on the patio, this is truly downtown East Boon. Can you explain why?

SPEAKER_01 10:25

Yeah, well, first off, we um years ago, this when we first bought this building, uh, this part of town didn't really have an identity. And so we got together with friends from Hatchet Coffee and Destination by Design and literally had a lunch, and we were like, what are we gonna call this side of town? And the idea of East Boon came up, and we are kind of right in the heart of East Boon. So it actually kind of came from a few businesses that were already operating over here.

SPEAKER_03 10:50

Some of the those business interests, you've got um a little bit of everybody's showroom on your patio.

SPEAKER_01 10:58

We do. Uh, we're standing here in the patio in the front of Boont Time right now, and um our friends over at Harden Creek Timber Frame actually helped uh design the patio and cut the logs. We went over there and watched while they were cutting the logs, literally like a mile away from here. So they played a huge role locally um in helping us with the patio.

SPEAKER_03 11:16

And then Charleston Forge did good bit of your furniture.

SPEAKER_01 11:19

Right. They're just two buildings up from us here in the industrial park, and Charleston Forge did they build some table frames as well as all of our bar stools and worked with us on that, which is um awesome. And then another one um we still to this day have some Goodnight Brothers products on the menu. Another business right here in the industrial park that was part of our getting started over here.

SPEAKER_03 11:40

One of the first times I came over here, the first room we walked into is just inside the patio. It's your main tasting room. How long did it take you all to work in here to where it actually felt like, yeah, this can be a restaurant?

SPEAKER_01 11:54

Uh that's a good question. So before we um so when we we bought the building, it had been occupied by uh a company, Highland International, I believe was the name. They made industrial paint products. And so it was a warehouse in the back where the brewery is, and then in the front where the tasting room is now in the restaurant, it was was their mixing room. So there was there was literally there's a loft in here uh on upstairs, and that was actually from they were gravity feeding and mixing their paint products in the room. Everything had to be explosion proof, it was but it was just a box, there was no heating and air or air conditioning at all. And so uh when we first bought the building, Carson and I, when we looked at it, we immediately saw the vision of okay, the brewery would go in the back and a tasting room would go in the front, but it took a little while for us to figure out what would that look like. Uh, we did work, we worked with 444 construction out of blowing rock to help us kind of conceptualize how we might use the space and turn it into a tasting room. And honestly, it came out um better than I think we could have imagined. Uh, we had coined the term with them of warm industrial. We were like, let's go for warm industrial. We weren't quite sure what that meant at the time, but I think if you if you look at the space, it does kind of have that feel, and you're like, oh, okay, I know what warm industrial might be now.

SPEAKER_03 13:08

We're having this conversation in the heart of summer. What does a summer Saturday look like in here with Budenshine's at its best?

SPEAKER_01 13:15

Yes, so a perfect summer day. We're hoping to get some of those this weekend. Um, the garage doors are open, the tasting room is is full. The inside actually is a little bit less busy in the summertime than it would be in the wintertime because everyone wants to sit out on the patio or spend time in the beer garden. Um the way it works here, we we changed this a couple years ago now, but you can come in and you can get a seat and have table service in the restaurant or for our full menu. You can also order off of a menu at the bar and get food kind of take out and take anywhere on the Boonshine campus. So if you just want the warm grain, but warm grains bowl, uh, you can order that from the bar, get it to go, walk out the beer garden, enjoy that out there. And then we also have a third option where we have our own food truck uh that has also a slightly different menu than what we have inside, a condensed menu. And you can come, of course, and order uh food from the food truck out in the beer garden. We have a tap trailer that would be going on a busy summer day. People are hanging out at the bar rail, ordering beers at the bar as well. At the same time, people are sitting down to enjoy a meal. So lots of options.

SPEAKER_03 14:16

We'll we'll talk about the the uh beer garden part in a second, but you just mentioned this perfectly. You've got like three different business lines that are working together on a given day. How do you manage which one gets the priority or are they all kind of work in harmony to make the day?

SPEAKER_01 14:31

Yeah, that's a great question. I think well originally, well, our the service model kind of came out of necessity for us wanting to provide the best service that we can on a really, really busy day, which we get a lot in the summertime. And so adding the food truck really adds like an extension to our kitchen. We only have so much space in the kitchen and we can only uh, you know, the kitchen can only do it, cook as much food as they can with the space that we have. And so having the food truck provides a release from that, and as well as giving customers the ability to, you know, if they're you know, people enjoy it. The good thing we have about being a brewery in a restaurant is you come in, you know, if we're on a little bit of a wait, they can have a beer, go hang out in the beer garden while they're waiting for a table or waiting for their for their takeout food. So lots of different options, but it was built kind of on top of trying to trying to make it the best customer experience we could in light of the fact we know we just get really, really busy in the summertime.

SPEAKER_03 15:21

So within this industry, craft breweries, about the time you started this one, they were taking off, there was one on every corner. Now, as the industry somewhat retracts, it almost seems like you guys are stronger. What has led to that?

SPEAKER_01 15:34

Yeah, I think it's a it's a commitment to our the quality of what we're doing, the quality of the people here, and the service that we provide to our customers. On the on the beer side, as an example, um, it was in the last several, you know, last couple years, it's returning to be a more of a normal, maturing market. Prior to that, it really wasn't normal. Every brewery that was started was making it because the market was growing so fast and was so much excitement around craft beer, which was awesome, but it's not really a sustainable model. And so the market is really, I say it's kind of back to a normal, a more normal market that's maturing or that has kind of matured. And we're in a good place because we've built good systems. We have a great team, really good people on the team that love our products and love talking to customers about our products. And so it boils down to quality and then just you know how we take care of our customers, customer service, and that's kind of the the root of all that we do here.

SPEAKER_03 16:31

You know, we we often talk on this series about things that can scale to other businesses, and there's such an infusion of local. You talked about it on the patio, you've talked about it with the naming of the company. Is that the separator for quality craft beer businesses to make it to where there's a there's a story behind the product versus just another product?

SPEAKER_01 16:52

Yeah, I think that's right. It there's a story, there's a mean, there's a meaningful way that we got started and purpose for what we're doing. The other thing that we have here that's that's really great is our is our location here now. We're here in the industrial park, but we're right next to Brookshire Park where kids are playing soccer, there's a river, people are fishing in the river, people are taking walks. The location that we have, and people visit here in the high country, so they come up to the high country, they're looking for some place to go, they ask about local craft beer. This location just draws people in, and I think the quality of the location and the uniqueness of the location lends itself well to helping provide strength to our brand and continue to grow that brand.

SPEAKER_03 17:32

So the beer garden came after the inside was done, and it seems to have a little bit of an evolution to it every year. You've got a beautiful stage now. Um, this is one of those, again, places to be on the weekend. What has gone into the visioning of that space?

SPEAKER_01 17:47

Yeah, originally when we bought the building, it was just green space. There wasn't any tiered seating out there. We had a vision for we knew we would eventually expand out there and add some seating. Uh, we took advantage of time, kind of downtime that we had during COVID to actually add some tiered seating and some landscaping out there. We added the food truck uh right before, right in the early part of 2020. And then uh just uh in the fall of 2024, just in time for the great flood, we added the stage out there, which um I'll mention again was also designed and built by our friends just right up the road at Harden Creek Timber Frame. So now we're just in our second year being able to utilize the stage. We've we use it for special events, and then we do we have a music series that every Friday night at seven o'clock, a free music series over here that we're calling Tunes on Tap.

SPEAKER_03 18:33

Um, last question out here, and then we can go wander back in the the beer. Um, what is your staff count? How many people make Boonshine Shine on a given day?

SPEAKER_01 18:43

Yes, so we have so there's two sides of the business. We look at it all together, but we look at separately. We have the brewery and brewery distribution side of the business. We have about 10 employees on that side, which include brewers and sales and management. Uh on the restaurant side, tasting room side, we're at our high peak right now. We have about 60 employees right now, a combination of front of house staff as well as back of house in the kitchen. But so all total about 70 employees right now. And how do you ramp up that seasonal hiring? When does that start? Um we learn every year. It it starts earlier and earlier every year. That the whole the cadence of uh staff in Boone, you know, all you know, all of the service businesses here we all rely on in college students are are part of our staff. And so the the normal cadence with school and with apartments and leases and all of that, we're learning more each year. But we start, as an example, we're at our high point now, but we started ramping up in late February, early March, actually interviewing to make sure that we were fully staffed for the summer.

SPEAKER_03 19:41

We head inside the brew house and continue our talk with Tim Hurdklotz of Boonshine right after this. You are listening to MindYour Business.

SPEAKER_02 19:50

Appalachian Commercial Real Estate provides professional commercial real estate services in the Boone area. They provide sales, leasing, consulting, and appraisal services to owners and users of commercial real estate. For more information, go to their website at Appalachian CRE.com.

SPEAKER_03 20:07

Welcome back to Mind Your Business. I'm David Jackson. Built in Boone continues as we step inside the brew house at Boonshine Brewing Company and catch back up with Tim Herdclots. With this being a restaurant and people having an understanding, a relatively fresh understanding about how that industry had to change during COVID. What's left over here from that? Any processes that you stumbled upon back then and said, hey, you know what, this might actually work as part of our daily operation?

SPEAKER_01 20:35

Yeah, I think it it forced us to kind of simplify some things uh because of uh some issues with just it was harder to find staff during that time. And so we we did actually simplify our menu a little bit. We changed our service model. The biggest thing would just be the the operation of the beer garden because when when we first were allowed to have customers back during COVID, we were super excited to do that. But we were really fortunate to have an outdoor space, and so it actually taught us uh we learned a lot of things, what to do and what not to do in terms of servicing the the outdoors part, including the beer garden.

SPEAKER_03 21:07

We've talked to you about this before because you start this business, and in the 10 years plus now that you've operated, you've had two significant disruptions that have hit the entire world, especially um uh up here, but but let alone growing business. How did you navigate through COVID to be as strong as you were through Helene and navigate that challenge?

SPEAKER_01 21:29

Yeah, funny. We were talking about this just yesterday. We we um I think maybe last year was the first normal year we've had since we opened here in East Boon. Um there's been a lot of major challenges we've gone through. I would say there's no one, there's no like one simple answer, but I would say at a at the highest level, what it was was Carson and I got together in the early days of COVID that was this huge unknown to everybody. And we decided that you can respond one of two ways in a situation like that. You can respond out of hope or you can respond. Out of fear. And we were like, well, we're just going to respond out of hope. We don't know what this means. We, this is something that's very serious. We need to do everything we can to take care of our staff and our teams, but we're going to maintain a hopeful view as to what's next. And so it allowed us to continue to invest and just view the future and think about how to make this better in the future. And then when we came around to the flood, when we had the flood, the same thing happened. You know, the same kind of mindset was there. Like, okay, number one, let's fortunately we are okay with our structure and buildings here. Let's make sure our teams are okay. Let's figure out how we can serve the community. One of the stories I love to tell is Nick's brewery team on the day immediately after the flood hit and the rain stopped, they were over at A and B digging, you know, shoveling out mud out of their brewery to help them as friends in town. That's just a perfect example of kind of how we're wired. And then later, once we kind of got back on our feet, the community started to come back together a little bit at that time in the flood. Um, Shirley and Nick and their teams put together a nice fundraiser that we were able to do uh for to raise funds using our stage for the first time. The very first time we really used the stage was to help do a fundraiser for Helene. Um that that's kind of that's just kind of how we're wired. But I would say it comes from a hopeful view versus a, you know, you can react out of hope or fear in a lot of things in life, and we just chose and choose to react from a hopeful view.

SPEAKER_03 23:22

You know, that is one of the elements that we've talked with people about before. I know it's not why you do it, but those businesses that are able to show up for community versus be a business in those tender moments tend to have it come back around to them. Have you seen the evidence of that? You're the the way that you were able to adapt during COVID and provide safe and responsible at that time seating and menu options and all of the things, and then, you know, rolling your sleeves up during Helene, has that led to people saying, that's a business I want to go support?

SPEAKER_01 23:55

Yeah, I think it has. I think it's why people return. I think it's why the feeling that people get when they're here, they can look at the team here at Boone Shawn and be like, this is a this is a nice environment. And I can tell people like to be here, and that's really most important to us is community, whether it's community of our staff and the team here or the broader community. That's that's why we're doing it. We don't talk about it a lot externally. We don't really market around all the things that we're doing in the community, but people do realize and then want to come back. I'll give you a perfect example. We're doing an event uh Thursday night this week uh with uh Deerfield, uh Deerfield, was it Deerfield States? Deerfield, Deerfield Ridge, thank you. Um, and they're doing an Alzheimer's fundraiser here where there's going to be music and and fundraising for them. And this is, I think, the third year now that they've done that here. They've come back, they've had a good experience, we've had a good experience, it's a good place for customers. And so I think people realize when you're trying to do something better and give back to the community, people do realize that and it resonates with them and they want to come back over and over.

SPEAKER_03 24:52

So I I guess maybe first, how much of your product is brewed here on site?

SPEAKER_01 24:58

Yeah, a hundred percent of our Boonstein beers are brewed right here in Eastboon in the room where we are now. Yep. Uh, when we moved over here, when we first started Boonstein, we were over uh next to Basil's restaurant, and we had our brew house and we had I think three fermentation tanks and one finishing tank, and we added three more ferment fermentation tanks when we were there. But we moved since we moved over here, we've expanded our our capacity probably 10 times uh what we had there. So uh yeah, 100% is brewed right here in Boone. Uh it's 100% self-distribution, so it's us when we're we're making sales calls, we're delivering the beer. It's all Boonshine. How many different beers are rolling through here on a given day? Um, well, it probably count as many fermentation tanks we have. I'm gonna guess a number here. Let's see. There's probably 10 to 12 different beers here right now in the fermentation tanks as we speak. And kind of exciting for us. Um we actually this week are brewing our Oktoberfest, which won't release until mid to late August. But you have to get ahead, you know, in terms of the time it takes to make a really good Oktoberfest. So we're actually brewing for our Oktoberfest right now.

SPEAKER_03 26:10

Yeah, I think that's one of the most intriguing parts of this whole operation back here is the lab element of it all. How much time, effort, and resource do you put into refining your product?

SPEAKER_01 26:20

Yeah, so we're constantly refining. Uh, the brew team is constantly reviewing recipes, looking at statistics of past beers, doing taste tests. Um, and so it's a constant process. Um, we also have partnered over the years and actually continue to partner. You mentioned lab. Uh, we we continue to partner with the university for lab work, making sure that everything stays um, you know, as fresh as it can be, and learning if we have questions about a batch, we go to our our friends and partners over at the university. So it's it's a really good partnership there. But yeah, we're constantly tweaking and uh, you know, we the yeast make the beer. We just kind of set the yeast up to make the beer. And so we're we're looking at the yeast under a microscope, counting cells, you know, thinking positive thoughts uh to keep the yeast going. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:06

You see, part of the I guess the business model really within the industry was something you guys have done well. It's all of the the collaborations, whether that's creating a beer for Boonerang, which we'll see uh this weekend. Uh, you've done things for Blue Ridge Conservancy, trail beers, um, rafting beers, a Sasquatch beer. Um what uh what level of creativity does it take to make the right match for that nonprofit or that that community event to make it not only a good beer, but something that resonates with people too, the like the the just the creativity of it all.

SPEAKER_01 27:39

Yeah, I think um, and I'm I'm not really the creative one here. I well, thankfully we've got we've got creative folks on our teams, whether it's the front of the house team that's managing an event here or whether it's the brewery team that's doing a collaboration with another brewery. Uh we're fortunate to have a really good team here. But I think the the biggest thing for us is figuring whenever we do that, we're trying to figure out we don't just want to do something that's gonna benefit us. We want to figure out what's the win-win-win where we can work together with a partner and figure out what's gonna help them and help us and help the broader community. And so thinking about it that way, I think lends to ideas that that are viewed as that's a creative idea because it's a win-win for everybody.

SPEAKER_03 28:16

Well, walk us through start to finish, kind of where where where does the process start and how does it get into a can in front of you on a Saturday afternoon?

SPEAKER_01 28:24

Okay, so it starts with uh the the brew day and basically malted barley. So barley is a is a is a grain that grows, a grass that grows, they harvest the kernels, it gets it goes to a malt house and gets into to what we call malt malted barley. So you put together different kinds of malted barley for the recipe. We crack it open in a mill, it moves into what we call the mash tun, which is one of our uh stainless tanks, and you add hot water at a certain temperature range based upon the kind of beer you're making. That converts the starches in the malt into sugars, and then you get as much of the sugars as you can and water into the boil kettle. You boil it and add hops for both bitterness and flavor during that boil. The boil takes about an hour or so, and then you cool it down, you add maybe more hops depending on what beer we're doing at the time. You cool it down, you move it to one of these fermentation tanks, and then once it's at the right temperature, we add the yeast, which I mentioned a minute ago actually makes the beer. We add the yeast, the yeast eat the sugars and create the alcohol as well as some of the flavors in the beer. Once that's finished, uh the yeast falls to the bottom of the tank, the tank clears, we transfer it over to a tank that we're gonna package from. And then from packaging, we have basically two options. First is packaging in kegs. It might go to a bar or restaurant for draft beer, and packaging in cans. We have our own canning line here as well. Uh, we do about half of our beer goes in cans and about half in kegs.

SPEAKER_03 29:54

When you say half of your beer in cans, how many cans do you process out of here in a week?

SPEAKER_01 30:00

Good question. Um, I think on average, probably a few hundred cases of cans on a given week. It goes up or down depending on what what we're what we're doing that week, but on average, probably a few hundred cases.

SPEAKER_03 30:13

When people come to the tasting room, is that the freshest supply? Like how long does it take for a beer to be done with the process and hit some somebody's tap somewhere?

SPEAKER_01 30:24

Yeah, most of the beers we do take about 14 days from the brew day to the time that it's carbonated and packaged. Uh, an exception would be our lagers, like the Oktoberfest I mentioned. That's going to take more like six or eight weeks for us uh for that style of beer. But once it's so about two weeks for most of our beers from the time it's packaged and ready to deliver. We're fortunate here being a being a brew pub. We just roll over the freshest kegs right here, our tasting room. But we keep our beer as fresh as we can for our customers as well. We we take a close look at our inventory levels, historical sales, and try to make sure that our beer is the freshest that it can possibly be. And especially for our local customers. We're a pretty small brewery. Most of our distribution happens here locally. Um it's the freshest beer that you can get. We do go as far as Raleigh as well. Uh each week we're we're but you know, but all of everybody gets the fresh beer, but just being local, it's probably a little fresher if I'm honest, just because you know, we're right down the street from a lot of our customers here. Yeah, so on a on a brew day, how many people are in here making all of that happen? Yeah, typically, so right now we're brewing. Uh, we've got two brewers here, and I think we've got another uh another uh employee who is responsible for packaging. So we doesn't look like we're canning today. We were canning yesterday, so we would have three here. We'll run a couple shifts, so we'll have some someone come in later this morning and overlap and run the shift into the evening. We'll probably be brewing two or three times today.

SPEAKER_03 31:49

What does growth look like in in this space? I know you you have done such a great job, especially maybe this is a carryover from basil's where you had to be incredibly efficient with your space. But here it's all packed in really well too.

SPEAKER_01 32:01

Do you have room to expand? We do. Uh we have room here to expand. We could expand our brew house, we can get, we can add tanks, we can move the tanks that we're looking at here, a bunch of stainless tanks. We can move them closer together, we can small swap out smaller tanks for larger tanks. The biggest challenge in our space here for growth would just be cold storage. We would need to continue to add additional cold storage for finished beer. But we have room, even though it looks a little tighter in here than it did, we actually have room to expand quite a bit here.

SPEAKER_03 32:28

So everybody is looking at this particular stage of the economy that we're in. Discretionary spending is is tight. People are being very creative with how they spend and being very intentional. How have you adapted your business model to make sure that this is at the top of the list? It seems like the crowds continue to come. So those intentional spends are are still happening here.

SPEAKER_01 32:52

Yeah, I think it's just um continuing to maintain the quality of what we're doing. Um, you know, we're having to look at our cost structure just like everybody else. Um, finding uh ways to reduce our costs and manage our expenses allows us to keep our prices for customers where they are. Um that doesn't mean they they won't go up in the future. That's just a normal thing. But we we our first instinct is not just increase prices on our customers. Our first instinct is how do we maintain the customer experience we have and make other changes that are going to allow us to keep doing that? It's a challenging time for sure, but working through that with that mindset, I think, is the best way to do it.

SPEAKER_03 33:30

You know, a lot of the things that we've talked about in this conversation go back to continuity. And when you look around here today, you see a lot of the same faces that have been around here through some of these formative and and challenging times at times, but also periods of growth too. What is the Boonshine culture and how do you how do you care for that just as much as you care for other cultures that do things for you uh in in beer production? I mean, it's is somewhat the same kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 33:56

Yeah, I think um it's really a testament to our team and our two main leaders, uh, Shirley and Nick Shirley manages as a GM of the tasting room, and Nick is the GM of the brewery. And I think you know, we talk a lot about leadership and the the leader, the type of leadership model we try to use here as a servant leadership model, where it's not a top-down, you know, go do this kind of a model. It's hey, we want our leaders to be able to come alongside the managers and the staff and help them get better where they are, come to where they are and be willing to help them at that level. And so we that's kind of like the high-level mindset we try to use. And but I would just say it's it's a testament to to Shirley and Nick and their leadership and the culture that they've grown within that higher level structure.

SPEAKER_03 34:40

Two last questions for you. Uh the first one, if you could wave a magic wand and do anything 10 years into this business, what would you direct that energy toward?

SPEAKER_01 34:52

That's a good question. Sure. Shirley says, Yeah, we want more money. No, no, I think, you know, I think ideally we want to we want to keep this going and keep growing. Um we're the brewery is is growing slightly in a market that's decreasing right now. So we're sort of a little bit in a holding pattern, but we're keeping our eye on the future and and there's lots of opportunities for us to leverage what we're doing and grow it, whether it's through another location, whether it's through just leveraging and doing more here. Like this is this is, I think, you know, the first season that we're starting to gain a little momentum with using the stage that we have here. And we're only using it once a once a week. So I think there's opportunity for us to continue growing right now here in this local community that's most important to us and actually here on site to make it better.

SPEAKER_03 35:37

A little bit of this wrapped up in the last question. So what's next? What what do you have your eyes on as you're looking for for that opportunity to move out of a holding pattern?

SPEAKER_01 35:48

Yeah, I think um for me personally, it's just wanting to help grow our team so that they can take more of a leadership position uh going forward. I'm getting a little bit older in my career, but my my goals and I think would be to continue to see them grow and continue to provide opportunities for them. And at the same time, that provides opportunities for Boonshine to continue to grow into the future.

SPEAKER_03 36:12

Thanks to Tim and the entire crew at Boonshine for the beer and delicious food they create, but more importantly for the vibe they bring to our community, one where people, relationships, and helping one another truly matters, and is tasted and toasted each time you raise a glass of the perfect pint right here in the high country. Boonshine Brewing Company built and brewed right here in Boone. This is a business podcast, so of course we would have some numbers for you as we head to break. You can actually trace the brewing of beer in our state back to the mid-1700s. Mathabra, the Moravian corner of Winston-Salem. The first Moravian distillery was created there in 1756. The modern-day craft beer experience in the state can be traced to Weeping Radish out in Mateo, one of my dad's old favorites. That started in 1986. Here in Boone, we have Boonshine, Appalachian Mountain Brewery, Blowing Rock Brewing, the three OGs, if you will. Then, of course, there is South End Brewery, Lost Province, and our newest player, Goofy Foot Tap Room and Brewery, that's next to McAdoo's on King Street, like Southend. They have triad area routes and are getting started up here. Of course, my Booner Wrangers will remember Cottonwood, a Howard Street staple for years. Back in February of this year, the North Carolina Craft Brewers Guild released a study on the state of craft beer in the state. 400 permitted brewing operations are in business in North Carolina. So, see, you are right. There are a lot of options staring back at you when you roll into peabodies. Those facilities employ over 18,000 workers, and the brewing industry has an annual economic impact of $2.3 billion on North Carolina's economy. That makes our state the top beer state in the South and one of the top ten beer states in the nation. Think of that the next time you are at AMB and you raise a can to recite the official North Carolina State toast. From the land of the longleaf pine to the sunny streets of Boonerang, 2026, we talk festival logistics next. You are listening to mind your business.

SPEAKER_00 38:22

Are you a young professional looking to expand your network? The High Country Young Professionals, affectionately dubbed the High Country Yopros, is a dedicated group of 200 plus professional young adults under the age of 40 serving in various industries across the high country. Join us for our casual networking event on the first Tuesday of each month from 5 to 7 p.m. As we visit locations across the high country. Events are free of charge. However, donations are appreciated. Not a chamber member? That's okay. No membership needed to join us. You just have to be under 40. Learn more about High Country YoPros at Boonchamber.com slash H C YP.

SPEAKER_02 39:04

Mind your business. Brought to you by Appalachian Commercial Real Estate, offering sales, leasing, consulting, and appraisal services. Visit Appalachian CRE.com.

SPEAKER_03 39:16

Boonerg Weekend. It is here, the fifth annual event put on by the town of Boone's Cultural Resources Department and championed by local businesses, sponsors, and volunteers that will help transform the streets of downtown Boone into a good old-fashioned time machine this weekend. Welcome to those that are visiting for the next few days. We hope you enjoy your personal nostalgia tour. If you want to get up-to-date schedules and to stay clued in on any weather-related schedule changes, though it looks like any weather is going to be out of here by the time the festival begins, it's always great to check out Boonerangfest.com and make sure you follow Boonerang on social media, especially for any of those event day updates, weather changes, and other factors. Social media accounts for Boonerang, a must follow this weekend. The Boonerang website has all of the details you need for downtown parking, and note that road closures in the area will make some of your normal routes to downtown just a bit more challenging, especially during peak times. So make plans to arrive early and know that some of the best parking is actually on the outskirts of downtown, like on the App State campus or in the Wataga County social services lot near App Healthcare, especially for those of you coming from the west side of Wataga County. Again, all of these details can be found on the website, Boonerangfest.com. While you are here, be sure to stop into our local businesses for more than just a cooldown. Some of these businesses see Boonerang as one of their busiest days of the year, certainly of the summer, and there are plenty of great options when it comes to finding local art, crafts, gear, gadgets, food. You've got it all, and every local dollar spent is impactful. So thanks to Mark Fried, Brad Farthing, Mayor Dalton George, and the entire town of Boone's staff for going above and beyond to make this event a true success. Wave at us when you see us. Our chamber crew will be out and about some this weekend, soaking in the sun and enjoying the Boonerang experience all throughout the streets of downtown Boone. We're back to wrap up the episode right after this. You are listening to Mike Business. Okay, it's time for the game. I promised a few rounds of what are they building over there? Let's start on US 421, around Bamboo Road, east side of town. That clearing that is taking place on the Bullock property. That's the old farmland that's there. That is for Boone Fire Station 4, which will soon be going vertical in its construction. That station will service the growing east side of town, the east boom community, if you will, and we'll be about the only town of Boon project on that land as they are in the process of selling a significant parcel on the Bullock farm, as reported in the Wataga Democrat earlier this week. All right, moving a little farther into town, steel building going up on Blowing Rock Road, almost directly across the street from Chick-fil-A. That is a new branch of United Community Bank, one of two projects being built by BPC builders in close proximity. One block off Blowing Rock Road, just behind their headquarters location. The other steel in the air is for Western Youth Network's new youth center, which will service after-school program needs and plenty more for school-aged kids across Witogga County. See if he wasn't that fun. We'll do it again later this summer, don't worry about that. For now, that's gonna do it for this episode of Mind Your Business. This program is written and produced each week by the Boone Area Chamber of Commerce. Thanks again to WATA for placing us on the airwaves each week. And thanks as always to James Miller and his team at Appalachian Commercial Real Estate for making the podcast version of this program possible. If you are not a subscriber, fix that issue today. Search for Mind Your Business wherever you get your podcast. You can visit us online anytime at boonchamber.com as well. Until next week, we'll see you at Booner. So long, everybody.